He Asked for Divorce—So I Said Yes

The last time we fought, Sawyer asked for a divorce. I said yes. After that I stopped caring. All the gossip about him and Cassandra Devlin, I looked right past it.

Then Sawyer broke the silence between us. He was the one who reached out, asking me to come to a friend's wedding as his wife.

I was watching a reality show, laughing until my stomach hurt, and it came out of me without thinking. "Take Cassandra." The room went quiet all at once.

Sawyer looked at me, his face cold and set. "Don't joke about that. You're my wife." I thought about it for a long time. "Sawyer, let's just call it.

Let's get divorced." He froze where he stood. Chapter 1 Sawyer came back from his trip two weeks after the fight.

He rolled his suitcase through the door and we looked at each other. After that fight, all we had left was a heavy kind of quiet. It held.

We stood there facing each other and neither of us moved, neither of us spoke. The wheels of his suitcase sounded enormous.

When he came out of the bedroom, his brow pulled slightly. "Where are your clothes?" I answered honestly. "I moved into the guest room." I'd thought about moving his clothes into the guest room and keeping the master bedroom for myself.

Then I thought about it again. Sawyer bought this place. And since I'd already agreed to the divorce, whatever we were now, we weren't husband and wife anymore. He was the master.

I was the guest. Better to let him have the master bedroom. So I said, "I haven't found a place yet, that's the only reason I'm still here.

If it bothers you, I'll move out tomorrow." Sawyer went still at that. His fingers stopped, so slightly I almost missed it.

He looked at me and his brows drew together. "That isn't what I meant." I smiled. "Good, then. I'm going to bed. You should get some sleep too." I was being polite with him.

Then I went straight into my room. Sawyer had brought up divorce three times. I never took any of it seriously. The last time, I said yes.

That fight was when I felt it coming, that he and I were finished. It started because I lied to him. I'd been in a car accident. Nothing serious.

My best friend Tara Holloway stayed with me through every scan and every test, and we were about to leave. Tara is a doctor.

The private group chat she had with her coworkers lit up. [Wait, isn't that the Rothwell? As in Rothwell Holdings?] [Cassandra Devlin got hurt doing a wire stunt on set.

She's here, in our hospital. Rothwell came in with her.] [Holy crap, Cassandra's hurt? How bad?] [Bad. He rode in with the ambulance.

She's still in the ICU.] [So Cassandra and Sawyer Rothwell are actually real. I thought the gossip accounts made that whole thing up.] [It's real.

A friend of mine went to USC with both of them. They were together all through college.] There was a video, too. It was the set, right after Cassandra's wire stunt went wrong.

The pressure rolling off Sawyer silenced the whole room. He never raised his voice once.

His voice came out cold and heavy, one word set down at a time, with anger packed into each one.

Nobody around him dared to move. "I put that kind of money into this, Ashcroft, and this is what you show me?" "You told me it was foolproof.

Foolproof means one of my people ends up hurt?" "So that money might as well have gone in the trash, is that it?" The director they were calling Ashcroft had broken out in a cold sweat, and he kept apologizing. "Mr.

Rothwell, this was a failure by our entire crew. I'm sorry." The video ended there. Tara asked me, "Nini, did you call him when you got in the accident?" I called.

Sawyer didn't pick up. Chapter 2 Tara was so angry her eyes went red. She told me to hand over my phone. She called Sawyer, and I have no idea what she said to him.

Half an hour later he came through the door. His strides were long and fast, his back rigid. There was a fine sweat across his forehead and his brows were locked down.

The second she saw him, Tara winked at me. "Play up how fragile you are while you've got the chance. Make him ache over you." And then she was gone, out the door, just like that.

It was only Sawyer and me in the room. I hadn't expected her to call him at all.

His voice was hoarse and rushed. "What did the doctor say?" I was about to answer when the doctor knocked. "You're the one who came in from the car accident? Nia Sheridan?

I just went through your report. Nothing serious. If it doesn't hurt anymore, you can go." Sawyer's face gave away nothing. He cut one look at me and didn't say a word.

He didn't look at me again until we got home. Then his eyes lifted. "Your friend told me you were in the ICU.

That the doctors said it was critical and family needed to come right now." I blanked. That was what Tara had told him.

The cold came into his voice and his face darkened, and then he was shouting. "Nia Sheridan.

You think a joke like that is funny?" I lowered my voice. "I'm not joking." I had never seen him like that before. Nothing human in him, nothing warm.

He made a small scornful sound and narrowed his eyes at me. "Nia Sheridan.

There's a time and a place for a jealous scene." "Playing games with your own life, faking an illness, treating the ER like a toy.

You don't feel guilty about any of that?" I got in a car accident and went to a hospital for a scan, and somehow that made the ER my toy.

The shadow across his face got heavier. "You knew Cassandra was in surgery. So you did it on purpose.

Is that it?" "Don't joke about things like that." "She's lying in the ICU right now and nobody knows if she's going to make it." The cold in his voice and the cold in his face left me feeling wronged. "Sawyer, I was in a car accident.

You're my husband.

Coming to the hospital is the bare minimum." "Why don't you go ask Cassandra if she feels guilty about being a homewrecker." "When she was busy being a homewrecker, why wasn't she afraid that having no decency would come back around on her?" "Falling off that wire is exactly what she had coming." His voice shot up. "Nia Sheridan." "Let's get divorced." That was when I heard how far I'd gone, and my heart went into free fall.

After he said it, I stayed quiet for a long time. Then I nodded. "All right, Sawyer. Let's get divorced." Something in him stalled. His phone rang right then.

He looked at me once before he left, and there was nothing in it. That one look put a tremor through me. I thought, this time we're really done.

After he was gone I lay on the couch with nothing left in my body, running the fight back through my head.

The gossip accounts were passing around that Sawyer hadn't moved from outside the ICU all night. The next day he didn't come home.

His assistant, Patrick, came for his clothes and I let him in. "Mr. Rothwell has a flight in two hours. I'm here to pick up his clothes." I nodded.

After Patrick left, I packed my things quickly and moved into the guest room. Separated, under the same roof. Sawyer was gone for two weeks on that trip. I adjusted fast.

I never contacted him. No calls, no messages. Chapter 3 I got in touch with a divorce attorney and had him draw up a marital property and separation agreement.

The petition went in along with it. I made time to look at apartments, too. The agent showed me several. None of them were right. So I hadn't moved yet.

And Sawyer and I weren't officially divorced yet either. I planned to wait for the judgment before I moved out. After he got back from his trip, it took me a while to adjust.

In the middle of the night I went out for water. Sawyer was still up. Our eyes met dead on, and I looked away.

His voice came low and rough. "Move back into the master tomorrow." "No need. Work's been heavy, I'll probably be putting in late nights.

Coming in that late would wreck your sleep." There was no sound behind me. I assumed he'd gone into the bedroom.

I muttered it under my breath. "Two people getting divorced, still living together. How does that look." I finished the water, turned around, and walked into a solid chest. A click.

Sawyer had turned on the lamp in the living room. He looked down at me, his eyes settling. "You wouldn't wreck anything.

Move back." I cut him off. "I'm going to bed." The next morning I came out of the guest room and ran into him. I went to the door, stepped into my shoes, picked up my bag.

I was on my way out. He said it lightly, like it hardly mattered. "Nia. Eat something first. I'll drive you." I smiled, polite and far away. "Thanks, but no.

A coworker's bringing me breakfast." Sawyer is one of our firm's clients. The gossip about him and Cassandra had the whole office going.

For days the break room talked about nothing else. "Wasn't Cassandra shooting in Europe this whole time?

She only came back to the States this year." "I heard Rothwell put close to a hundred million dollars into the first thing she made after she came back." "Rothwell and Cassandra were at USC together and he was the one who chased her.

The USC subreddit even had a name for him back then.

The bestlooking hopeless romantic on campus." "Bridget, didn't you go to USC?" Bridget smiled. "Same class as him." "Bridget, come on.

What do you know." "Only that he chased her," Bridget said, "and then she was the one who dumped him." A few of them looked genuinely surprised. "No wonder he lost it on set.

That's loyal past the point of sense.

Broken up all these years and he's still gone on Cassandra." "I figured a guy at Rothwell's level, looking the way he looks, never runs short of people in his bed.

Guess I was wrong." "If I'd sunk that kind of money in and my sweetheart got hurt, I'd be angrier than he was." I didn't join in.

I just stood there and listened, poured my coffee, and went back to my desk. Cassandra was discharged. I got home in the evening as Sawyer was heading out. Our eyes met.

He explained himself to me. "Cassandra's being released today. Do you want to come with me?" I looked at him, not following. "I don't want you getting the wrong idea," he said.

I smiled. "Go on, then." I walked to the couch and let myself collapse into it. I was so tired. When I looked up, he was still standing there in the doorframe.

The whole thing was strange. His eyes stayed on me, dark and unmoving. I pulled my mouth into something awkward. "Aren't you going?" Sawyer shut the door.

He called his assistant. "I'm not coming. You go with Miles." He actually wasn't going? And here I'd been hoping to have the place to myself.

Chapter 4 Alone with him now, I felt itchy in my own skin. Sawyer looked perfectly at ease, nothing moving across his face. "What do you want for dinner?

Let's go out." My plan, if he wasn't home, had been to go get kimchi stew. He can't stand the smell of kimchi. It gets into your clothes and into the car and never leaves.

So I almost never ate it. I glanced at him and looked away. "Get something for yourself." He laughed softly. "You're not eating?

What, a diet?" I shook my head. "I was going to go get kimchi stew in a bit." I expected him to pass. "I'll come with you." That threw me. We were getting divorced, sure.

But it was a bowl of kimchi stew. We went to the little Korean place on the corner where I always eat. Sawyer suggested we walk.

I did not have it in me to take a walk with him. "Let's drive." I'm a regular there. It wasn't busy at that hour, so the owner came over and chatted. "Hi, honey, back again.

The usual? Mild, extra tofu, hold the scallions." "Yes, please." She looked over at Sawyer with curiosity running all through her eyes. "Oh, you've got a boyfriend now?

No wonder you kept turning down my nephew. Your boyfriend's as goodlooking as you are." I had nothing. I didn't know what to say.

Sawyer and I spoke at the same time. "No, he's not my boyfriend." "I'm her husband." The owner clicked her tongue. "Ah, husband.

So when you had that accident right out front of my shop, your husband couldn't even come by?" Then she turned to Sawyer. "Your wife came that close to being gone that day.

It scared the life out of me. That close, and she'd have been under that delivery truck." Sawyer stopped. He turned to me. Every bit of color went out of his face